Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/22

20 entertaining any such plan. An attempt to put down religious education by law is not one which the christian legislature of this country can ever sanction.

But even should this view be generally taken, and such an attempt not be repeated, it will be said, perhaps, that the desired object may still be attained by other means, and that all classes of Dissenters may be admitted to the advantages of university education, without any interference with the existing colleges at all.

A proposition to this effect has lately been put forth by a writer in the Edinburgh Review, who unites considerable ability with an extensive acquaintance with the ancient constitution and state of universities both in this country and on the Continent—an advocate of a very different stamp from the ignorant and shallow declaimers who, both in and out of Parliament, have been calling out for the admission of Dissenters to the universities, without appearing to have the slightest notion either of the difficulties to be overcome, or of the effects such a measure would produce. It is but fair to this writer to say, that he states his views distinctly, and with great force; and if he does not succeed in mastering the difficulties in his way, it is apparently neither from want of knowledge of his subject, nor of ability to handle it. He makes, too, no use of the popular topics of misrepresentation, which are so much in vogue in both Houses of